One of the folk tales that my grandmother used to tell me
was about a Marathi saint called Namdev from Pandharpur. His father was an
ardent devotee of Vitthal. Every morning, after the Pooja, he would put Panchamrut
Prasad (a mixture of milk, ghee, curd, honey and jaggery) for the deity. Once
the Prasad was offered to the god, the father would eat it as a blessing. Young
Namdev however, was under an impression that the god himself eats the Prasad every
day. To his point, he had always seen the filled bowl of Prasad going in the
prayer room and an empty bowl coming out.
Once the father had to go out of town for some work. “Namya”,
he said, “tomorrow you will perform Pooja and offer Prasad to Vitthal.” Namya
was excited about this. He wanted to meet Vitthal and see him eat the Prasad.
He got up early, took bath at the banks of Chandrabhaga and came home to
prepare the Panchamrut Prasad. Well versed with all the rituals, he performed
the Pooja like a pro. Then came the time of offering Prasad. Namya made a
mandal (circle) of holy water on the floor and put the bowl of Prasad inside
it. Then he sprinkled holy water around the Prasad and offered it to the god.
He was eagerly waiting for Vitthal to come out of the conical headgear wearing,
akimbo posed, black colored statue and accept his offerings. Hours passed,
but the god still did not come and eat the Prasad. Disheartened, Namya’s
innocence was questioning his deeds because of which he thought the god is not
accepting Prasad. At that age and stage of belief, crying was inevitable for
him. He just wanted to know why the god was being unfair to him. Why would the
god accept Prasad from his father and not from Namya?
Distressed by his curiosity, Namdev decided to take an oath.
He told Vitthal in a childish, audacious way - “Unless you appear before me and
either have the Prasad or tell me the reason why you are not accepting it, I
will sit here before your statue and sacrifice food and water.” The father
returned in the evening to see Namya sleeping in the prayer room, marks of soiled
tears on his flat cheeks. Listening to his story, the father’s heart churned. “Arey
vedya, I am the one who eats the Prasad every day after the offering, not Vitthal”,
he said. But Namya was in a different zone altogether. Either his father was
telling the truth or he was just lying to pacify him. In both conditions, he
had taken an oath. And as said in good old days, you can give away your life
but can’t go back on an oath. Now this was an actual Dharma-Sankat (catch-22
situation) for the father-son duo. As the legend goes, Vitthal gave in to the
prayers of the innocent kid and appeared to accept the Prasad. I always thought
Namya was a fool. Why was he so adamant on seeing Vitthal have the Prasad?
I got reminded of this story a few days back when I started
the annual ritual of keeping a bowl filled with water in my balcony for the
birds. I could see the bowl empty when I came back home in the evening. One
day, just after I kept the bowl, I realized that some birds have arrived in the
balcony. I did not want them to fly away. So I just peeped through the
curtains. It was a bunch of pigeons. Thirsty, they covered the bowl from all
the sides and started gulping the water through their beaks. Seeing that was an
immensely satisfying experience for me. I chose not to take a picture because
it would have diverted my mind and I would have ruined my experience of that
satisfaction. It was my Namya’s Prasad being accepted as an offering by the
Vitthal. It seems, Namya was not indeed a fool. He was more aware about this
satisfaction that I had experienced.
Now, why this story? The point is, it is getting hot every
day. Please start putting bowls of water in your balconies or on roofs for
birds. Practice your Namya’s Prasad and you might get lucky to experience the same
satisfaction one of these days.
-Anurag
